


A Matter of Time

by jeejaschocolate



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Background Relationships, Blow Jobs, Canon Relationships, Cock Warming, Cock Worship, Crying, Grief, M/M, Masturbation, Mid-Canon, Necrophilia, Orgasm, Porn With Feels, Praise Kink, Rare Pair, Repressed Feelings, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues, Voyeurism, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeejaschocolate/pseuds/jeejaschocolate
Summary: Die-hardman knows he has three minutes until Heartman’s AED machine kicks in and brings him back to life. Just three minutes.It’s not nearly enough, but it’s all he’ll ever get. So he makes do.What he doesn’t know is that Heartman keeps video records of everything that happens in his lab. Including—and especially—when he’s on the Beach.It’s his time, after all. He wants to use it wisely.
Relationships: Die-Hardman/Heartman
Comments: 16
Kudos: 45





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

> ....really, Death Stranding fandom? No one's going to get in on how kinky Heartman's whole deal is? Really? Come on, fam, get your game faces on! Also, I have such deep affection for Die-hardman. He's a flawed character but I love his headspace. Let's go after it ;) 
> 
> Lol, I'm in rarepair hell again. Why does this always happen.
> 
> Buckle up, BBs! We're in for a wild ride. ^^^Tags^^^

His loves were dead. 

If there was nothing else noteworthy or true or honest in this world—and Die-hardman was starting to believe there wasn’t—then he at least knew that one thing for sure: His loves were dead. 

Humanity’s relationship with death wasn’t what it used to be, admittedly. These days ghosts lingered in the world of the living and carried on as some type of hive-mind driven phantoms. Leaving traces of themselves everywhere. A memory turned into a living nightmare. Die-hardman had experienced his fair share of BT encounters. He’d seen the research firsthand alongside the president. Not to mention, he’d been in war. He saw the empty, bloody, glass-eyed, shells people left behind when they died. He’d seen souls leave a body in real time. How there could be energy inside someone—a living, thinking, breathing consciousness—and then suddenly…there wasn’t. 

He knew what death really looked like. He knew death all too well. Intimately, you could say. 

So, knowing that his loves were dead didn’t strike Die-hardman as some poetic novelty. Nothing to write songs or stories about. The existential, reflective side of death was lost to him. There was nothing left for him to process, no complicated feelings to work through. He couldn’t even really cry about it. Dead was dead. Dead was firm. Dead was a provable state of being. Dead was _dead_. 

What else could you say?

When Die-hardman thought about his life, though…now there, he had some regrets. Regrets piled on top of guilt, piled on top of mistakes and hastily-made decisions that would haunt him the rest of his life. Worse than any ghost ever could. Die-hardman regretted almost everything he’d ever done and it kept him awake at night. 

He didn’t even really know how he could live with himself. 

The trick was, he supposed, the mask. That helped. The mask was more than just the black skull on his face, of course. He carried the mask inside him too, by building a wall of nihilistic logic around all the bitter, sad feelings that threatened to overtake him. For example, telling himself that he’d done it all for his country. That he’d killed the captain and destroyed his entire sense of ethics entirely for the sake of unifying America. He’d lied and committed crimes and done things he didn’t speak about anymore all so that humanity could rally against the apocalypse breathing down their necks. It made sense. What was one or two lives when held up against the fate of humanity? That was just logic. It wasn’t pretty but it made sense. It had to be done.

‘It made sense. It had to be done.’ 

That was the wall. He repeated those words to himself and pretended like he didn’t feel anything else. The person with the mask—‘Die-hardman’—did everything for a justifiable reason. He was cold and logical. Ruthless but only because he needed to be. 

That was the mask.

Underneath all that, Die-hardman knew… _John_ knew…his loves were dead. His reasons for living were shattered. He’d been walking on solid ground and suddenly his footing disappeared beneath him. He was wobbling, falling. He didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to do now. 

He wished Bridget was still here. Oh, god, how he wished that. Things made sense to him when she was around. She never flinched, never wavered. Never thought twice about doing something if she knew in the long run it would serve their cause. She made John strong. She made him Die-hardman, at least to the rest of the world. She made things easy. Her default way of being left no room for questions or contradictions, and John hated both those things anyway. He liked knowing what he was supposed to do. He liked following orders and knowing that he’d done what was right. Bridget gave him that—she gave him all that and so much more. She radiated a kind of governing wisdom (tinged with a palpable energy anyone who knew her would only describe as: Dark) that overrode any other thoughts in John’s head. He basked in her aura and did what she said without the burden of thinking for himself. It was freedom. She was freedom. She was absolute and perfect…and…

He missed her so much. 

Her death had been long and slow. Painful, ugly. They both knew it was coming years and months before it happened. Watching her die was a special kind of hell. But John would have lived with it for the rest of eternity if it meant he didn’t have to deal with what came next: The _absence_ of her. The un-fillable space in the world where she had been and now was not. That absence completely gutted him. 

Now he was operating only on his own directions. He was his own leader and that scared the shit out of him. How was he supposed to know if he was a good leader, even a passable one? He’d never been the one at the top! The only way Die-hardman could function these days is by imagining what Bridget would have wanted. He knew her wants better than anyone (intimately, personally, in every way possible; in his mind, in his instincts, in his face when he was eating her out and her cunt nearly suffocated him as she rode his mouth to whispering, eye-fluttering orgasm). He could imagine now with perfect accuracy what she needed him to do. 

But there were moments—increasingly often—when her phantom will came up empty. When circumstances arose that he hadn’t foreseen and he…didn’t know what she would have done. He needed to think for himself. 

Die-hardman trembled in the face of that kind of power. He didn’t want power, he never had. He wanted to _serve_ power. Body and soul.

Now that was over. So, what did it look like when he called all the shots? 

He tried to conjure up the emblem of perfect leadership that was his first love, his other love besides Bridget: The captain. _Cliff_ , though John never called him that. Not even when he had the captain’s hard cock in his mouth, throbbing and hot, gliding over his tongue with comfortable ease, like it belonged there—which it did. Although, to be fair, they’d only ever done that once or twice (and never anything more than just that). In the barracks on the battlefield when life was far from a certainty and every moment felt like the last. When they were high off adrenaline and too many cigarettes and gun smoke and echoing bombs that _just never stopped_ , and the captain saw the path of John’s eyes. 

And he smiled. And he unzipped his pants and stuck his dick in John’s mouth and held the side of his face. And told him he was _good_. 

“Oh, you’re good at this, aren’t you?” the captain had said. Smoking a cigarette over John’s head as he fucked his throat so very gently. 

John had cum just from that praise alone. 

His whole life he wanted to be good. To be the hero. Now, he was nothing like that. He was a black skull and pages and pages of lies he’d invented for no good reason. That’s all he really was.

He’d killed the captain with his own two hands. For no good reason. That was the truth. He hated himself more and more each day for it. He knew he was nothing. He wasn’t good or fair or honest. He never would be.

But even so, he wanted to be like the captain. He closed his eyes and imagined him—cut like the consummate American hero he was. The man that had saved his life over and over again. Who showed up for his soldiers and got them out alive. Who made all the right decisions in the heat of the moment, with prescient clarity and unshakeable confidence. Who treasured his family more than anything because he was so…good. 

Die-hardman closed his eyes…he closed his eyes and tried to summon that kind of goodness. 

…He failed. The very most he could do was idolize that leadership in an intellectual way—he could try to understand it, but he could never _become_ it. 

That hurt. It hurt almost as much as the knowledge that the captain’s goodness was lost to the world. That the world was a much worse place without it. That he’d killed more than just the captain that day; he’d killed decency itself, as well as some part of himself he’d never get back. 

Die-hardman’s heart was split in two. One piece for the captain and one for Bridget. Now that his loves were dead, what did that leave him with? 

Nothing. 

Nothing except regret and poor choices. Those were the only experiences left to him. It was a kind of hell, he supposed, but it was something he probably deserved. Regardless, no matter how he felt about it, he had to go on living in spite of everything. He had to keep on keeping on. Whatever that meant, he didn’t know. 

He needed to pull it together. 

He was a mess. He was a mask. A blank stare and a platitude of patriotism written over countless mistakes. He was nothing.

But he was still alive. Always. He was a deathless freak. And that hurt even more knowing the god’s honest truth: 

His loves were dead.

______________________________________

He remembered the moment the idea occurred to him. The thought. A foolish, repugnant, shameful thought he assumed would pass on its own.

…Not that he really fought it all that hard.

From Die-hardman’s office in Capitol Knot City, he had an audio feed through the cufflinks of everyone else in Bridges I. He tuned in quite often to the people on Sam’s team. Deadman, Mama, and Heartman. Without them, the plan would fail. So he spent much of his time listening. Chiming in to tell Sam some important information he might have missed. Reminding him to pack an extra pair of boots, explaining how time limits worked. Essential things, he reasoned. 

His feed from Heartman’s lab was constantly live. Sometimes that called upon his patience, he’d admit. Heartman could wax endlessly about his theories of the Beach. He sent over countless reports, then ate up much of Die-hardman’s day reading the reports aloud to him over the feed. It was mind boggling how much that man could talk. Really.

“Director, are you familiar with the lore behind Apu Illapu, the ancient Incan god of rain?” 

Die-hardman didn’t need to answer that. He just let Heartman lecture at length. 

“Some texts I uncovered in the chiral network seem to indicate that structures devoted to Apu Illapu were built in high places. Places reachable only by suspension bridges, utilizing the ancient form of mathematics we have attributed to the quipu…” 

In the beginning, Die-hardman found it excessive. He turned down the volume on Heartman’s feed and offered nothing in reply except sparse words of encouragement. He knew Heartman was intelligent and he had a hunch that the man would uncover the secret to all of this—the Death Stranding, the Beaches, all of it—before long. Die-hardman just…didn’t need to hear the specifics. 

He had absolute faith in Heartman. Leave it at that. 

After all, he indulged every request Heartman made for specialized materials in his lab. Deliveries of rare skeletons and controversial artwork. Through Bridges, Die-hardman personally made sure Heartman had everything he needed. The cushioned floors. The chiral hourglass. He was honestly impressed with the set up Heartman created, the way he’d considered every aspect of his condition and maximized his space to accommodate. It was hard not to be impressed by that—impressed and a little curious. 

Haplessly curious by nature. 

You had to wonder about a guy that went into cardiac arrest every twenty-one minutes. Was he really alright living this way? How did he…manage?

What did he…look like when he died? Was it peaceful? Or was it horrifying and painful, every time? Die-hardman knew death had both sides. So, which one did Heartman endure? What was his version of death and how did he cope with it? 

Part of Die-hardman was indefatigably curious about Heartman for other reasons too. Personal ones. The man had caused his own condition by inducing cardiac arrests so many times after his first near death experience. Did he have any regrets? (Was he like Die-hardman in that regard?) 

Die-hardman would learn—sooner rather than later—that Heartman was not. He did not harbor regrets. He saw his life as a continuous roulette of chances. Opportunities to meet his family again. To gain further knowledge of the Beaches. His mind was always busy furthering his research, working towards the future. Forever tabulating information. Coming up with theories. 

Heartman was not a man wrecked by thoughts of what could have been. He was not bitter about the terrorist attack that destroyed the hospital. He was not full of self-pity about his lasting condition. He was not daunted by the continuous failure he suffered every time his family eluded him once again. Over and over. Everything he said about the accident indicated this, everything he did and everything he worked for. Heartman’s state of mind was impossible to mistake. 

He went on. Kept going. 

…How?

For the life of him, Die-hardman could not understand how Heartman managed to proceed with his unorthodox version of life. How did he do it? How was he…the way that he was? 

So yes. It was accurate to say that Die-hardman was intrigued by the man. In a quiet, unspoken way. Underneath the mask, behind the wall. A sliver of curiosity and a tiny speck of…admiration. That warm feeling John got whenever he found someone who warranted respect. His heart had been devoted to the two people worthy of all the respect in the world, and they were dead now. But he still felt echoes of that feeling from time to time. Like ghosts. Copies made of copies made of copies. A fragmented echo. 

Still, it was there. 

To John, there was nothing more admirable than earning his respect. More than gender or body type or physical appearance, respectability was the thing that John appreciated the most. He could not help the way his chest swelled when he felt admiration for a person who deserved it. His knees weak with the longing to serve. His gut solid, firm in the knowledge that he’d found someone worthy. A good person. Strong. Difficult to emulate, but deserving of the chance. Decisive. Confident. Firm in the knowledge that they were on the right path.

That self-confidence was a killer for John. It got him every time.

At this point in his life—after being destroyed and reborn by love several times over—John could recognize the feeling in himself before it was even fully formed. For Heartman, that admiration was not yet an infant. Just a zygote. A whispering possibility that would never be born because there was nothing left inside John. No heart to bear the feeling to fruition. So, it was just that. A feeling. A single particle of warmth that John clasped in his chest and coveted. Something that Die-hardman would acknowledge in the real world with only a nod. Silent. Small. (Actually huge, but only if you could read his mind. Which no one could. Not anymore.)

It happened one day while Heartman was lecturing at him. 

“I uncovered some interesting synecdoche devices in the Wyandott language, the lingua franca of the Ojibwe people, as I’m sure you know,” Heartman was saying. Die-hardman wordlessly turned down the volume. “It seems the standard way of indicating—”

Suddenly Heartman cut out. Mid-sentence, in the middle of a diatribe, which had certainly never happened before. Die-hardman checked the connection. It was still strong. 

“Heartman, come in,” he spoke across the cufflink. “Are you there? What’s wrong?” 

The obvious explanation was that Heartman had suffered another cardiac arrest. But didn’t he time those things? Wasn’t he usually on a schedule? This one seemed to take him by surprise. Had it come out of nowhere this time? Were his NDEs becoming more sporadic? Was his condition worsening? 

That wasn’t good. Heartman’s research was integral to the operation. Not only that, but…the little echo in the shape of admiration that Die-hardman harbored for Heartman had suddenly flared into a worried bubble. About to burst. John’s instincts kicked in, ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice. Like on the battlefield.

He needed to check on Heartman. Stat. 

Putting his docket of tasks for the day on hold, John accessed the hologram terminal and teleported his image across the country, into the mountains, where Heartman’s lab was. These holograms were more efficient now with the use of the chiral network. John could see the inside of the lab—in all its dark, eerily lit glory—remarkably well. There was no fuzziness, no tip of the hand to give away the trick that this was all virtual. It felt like he was really there. 

John scanned the room for Heartman. There was no immediate sign of him; he wasn’t reclining in his chair where he normally was during an NDE. For a split second of panic, John worried that the lab had been attacked by terrorists, or MULEs. That Heartman and his research had been whisked away into the night—

But then a light blue blob on the floor next to the wall monitor caught John’s eye. He walked closer and found that yes, indeed, this was Heartman. Collapsed in a heap. The heart monitor on his AED machine reading a flatline. He was in cardiac arrest. As expected. 

John’s first instinct was to drag Heartman back to his chair. Get him settled before he was resuscitated, leave him some dignity. Because Heartman had fallen in a somewhat…undignified position. Legs tangled in the leather ottoman, hips propped up, face and neck on the ground. His manhood was the highest, most visible part of him in this moment. The angle of his body forced all his intimate curves into the light… John could make out the distinct thickness of the man’s private parts with a cursory glance, pressed against the zipper of his blue slacks…

Blinking and clearing his throat, Die-hardman grabbed Heartman’s shoulders and made to carry him to the chair. The chair, yes, the chair. Spare him some humanity. The chair, the chair…

But he forgot that he was just a hologram at the moment. His hands passed right through Heartman. Startlingly so, because it was the first time the realism was broken. For a strange heartbeat, Die-hardman thought he might have suddenly become a ghost. A dream trapped in the reality of other people—

But, no, no. It was just the holographic tech. He was incorporeal right now because his body was back in Capitol Knot. Of course.

So Die-hardman was frozen. Helpless. Not really there. Not able to leave for fear that Heartman might need help. Not able to do anything except stand there like a silent hologram. A token. A ward or a boon. A decoration. 

Die-hardman stood there and stared. He stared at Heartman and felt the silence of the room bearing down on them. The seconds ticking by. The snowy world distant and remote in the periphery beyond the windows. Everything was still. Especially Heartman, who was laying there under cardiac arrest. Not breathing. Not moving. His body splayed out on the floor. Defenseless against Die-hardman’s scrutiny…

Something about the atmosphere, the moment, the conditions in the room…Die-hardman was feeling it. He felt it. The part of him that he couldn’t control. Not quite his heart, not quite his basic human sex drive. Some combination of the two. The thing that drove John— _John_ , the man he used to be, the person—to ridiculous lengths. Chasing the high of a feeling he couldn’t give words to…a need, he would call it. Need. Pure and simple. 

A need that reared its head for the first time in quite a while. Not since Bridget started getting really sick. A need that took Die-hardman’s breath away as he stood there behind a black skull mask, a shadow against the decor of Heartman’s strange lab. A need that suddenly decided to make itself known. Here, of all places. Now, of all times. 

John wanted to keep looking. His eyes flicked over Heartman’s face. That slack, unassuming face. Not smiling, not frowning. Glasses slightly skewed by the position, but strangely…peaceful. Like deep sleep. Oh, so that was the kind of death it was. Quick and painless. There was…enviable beauty in that death. 

John’s eyes looked elsewhere. A pale neck dipping down into a collared shirt. Buttons tugging, almost broken free against the strap of the AED machine. A small patch of skin unearthed by the awkward angle, revealed in the space between the hem of Heartman’s shirt and the belt on his pants. Smooth and unmarred. John could make out the bottom curve of his belly button and it sent a jolt of arousal through him. 

That? That little navel? Why did that…?

But it was an intimate part of someone’s body. Most people didn’t go around showing their navels in public. They kept it hidden beneath clothing, a disguise-able part of their humanity. Similar to genitals, but more innocent. A round empty space where human life had once begun. Proof of being born. 

John wanted to get on his knees and examine Heartman’s bellybutton up close. He wanted to know it, intimately. To see how deep it was, to feel its give under his fingers. He wanted to dip his fingers lower, to the bulge in Heartman’s pants where his genitals burgeoned. Begging to be seen. To fight against the confines of clothing, where they stayed day after day. Untouched and unappreciated. Defiant, demanding attention.

John could feel his own manhood responding to the sight in front of him. He was getting hard. Twitching to life underneath his clothes, behind all the intimidating walls he put up. The baser, needier parts of him stirred. 

He was hungry. Aroused and flustered. Suddenly itchy with the want to touch. To _look_ …at the places you couldn’t in normal, respectable interactions. 

He took a few steps forward. Driven by the tiny flame of interest that sparked to life out of nowhere. Hot and strong. Unable to be doused with logic and reason…

A mechanical beeping sound shattered the stillness with one monotonous tone. There was a low drumming, a beat, then silence. Then a second, then silence. Then a third, louder—

And Heartman was awake. Gasping, eyes wide, sitting straight up. Tears running down his face. 

All at once, Die-hardman remembered himself. He had seconds to cover up his lewd intentions with some kind of excuse—

No, he didn’t need an excuse. He had a reason to be here! (Reason, yes, reason, reason. Logic. Get to it…find it, damn it!) 

“Heartman! Are you alright?” Die-hardman barked before Heartman had a chance to gather himself and realize there was something off. It was slightly out of the ordinary for the director to be standing there out of the blue with no explanation…. “Answer me, damn it!” 

Heartman blinked. Unhearing. Without taking notice of Die-hardman, he accessed his cufflink and recorded some information. 

“Trial 18,965…unsuccessful,” he mumbled. Flicking his cufflink back to a blank screen with practiced ease. Dabbing the tears on his face in a cursory way. Emotionless in the normalcy of it.

Turning to Die-hardman, Heartman rose to his feet and straightened his clothing. He seemed intrigued by Die-hardman’s presence, not exactly surprised. Perhaps it wasn’t the first time he came back from the Beach unfamiliar with his surroundings and the things he’d missed while he was away. 

“Director,” he said amicably. “To what do I owe the courtesy?” 

Die-hardman clasped his hands behind his back. Spine straight. Falling back into the picture of the man he was supposed to be. “You were lecturing me about something over the cufflinks and then you cut out. No warning. I didn’t hear your AED give you a reminder so I thought something must have happened…” 

“Ah, I had her on mute,” Heartman said with a playful look in his eye. He clicked a knob on his machine and the robotic voice rang out clearly: _“20 minutes to cardiac arrest.”_

Heartman sighed. “It’s a useful tool, but the constant reminders do grate on the nerves after a while.” He gave Die-hardman a wistful half smile and turned back to the monitor. “But, since you’re here, please. Jog my memory. What was I lecturing you about before we were interrupted, as you succinctly put it?”

“I…” Die-hardman hadn’t known ‘mute’ was an option. He figured that there was a decent chance this whole thing might happen in the future, due to Heartman’s carelessness. Well. At least now he knew. “…something about Native Americans again. The Ojibwe, I think…” 

“Right, right.” Heartman gave him a thumbs up, pointlessly gifting likes. “I was telling you about the lingua franca of the Ojibwe people, the Wyandott language, and their fascinating use of synecdoche in certain situations. I’ve uncovered the basic semantical structure of their casual conversations—”

“I’m sure you can tell me the rest over the cufflinks,” Die-hardman interrupted. Not wanting to stay for a lesson that would surely take another twenty-one minutes. 

Although…

…And that was the first time the idea occurred to him. The notion that Heartman went into cardiac arrest every twenty-one minutes. That he would be like that— _that_ , on display, resting, unseeing and unhearing—again in a swift matter of time. That it happened all the time, and if Die-hardman wanted…

If he wanted, then, it wouldn’t be too long before he could see it again.

“Certainly. Thank you for coming to check on me, by the way,” Heartman continued. He touched a hand to his chest, appearing touched in a some distant, barely recognizable way. (Emotions like that weren’t easy to come by these days.) “I appreciate your concern. And it helps to know there are eyes out there watching me, just in case.” 

Eyes. Right. Die-hardman’s eyes could be treacherous things, in fact…he felt his face heat up behind his mask.

“Or ears, in this case.” A smile crept onto Heartman’s face. “Thank you, Director.” 

“…You’re welcome…” Die-hardman replied awkwardly. He wasn’t used to being thanked in earnest like that. People generally didn’t appreciate or trust him in his usual circles. Because of the mask. His lack of a past. It made sense. He didn’t fault anyone for it. The cold, stand-offishness of his colleagues and subordinates was normal to him now. 

He felt the speck of appreciation he had for Heartman expand into a fistful of brightness. Clenched tightly between his fingers. Noticeable now. Undeniable. Being looked at with such honest eyes…it made John feel so warm. Like how Sam must feel when he stumbled into a safe house after a long day in the mountains. Defrosting around the edges. Cold to his core, but…slowly melting. 

Stop. No more.

“I’ll…be going now,” Die-hardman explained. Fumbling over his words. “Make sure to take care of yourself, you hear? …That’s an order.” 

“Understood.” Heartman gave him a nod and turned again to his monitor.

Feeling dismissed—fighting the urge to salute his way out—Die-hardman cut the hologram. He blinked around the empty space of his office, firmly back in reality. In his regular body. 

He’d just started something, he realized. Something he couldn’t finish. That idea…it was a really fucking stupid one. He’d be an idiot to get involved in something like that. Playing with fire. 

And yet…it would be easy to do. Heartman went into cardiac arrest every twenty-one minutes exactly. All Die-hardman needed to do was set a timer of his own, then check the cufflinks for Heartman’s current status. When he was under cardiac arrest, his status showed the standard prepper insignia instead of his face. Heartman had designed it that way to keep them all informed of when he was available to speak and when he wasn’t. As well as to keep business running if they needed to leave him a message. 

John could…send another hologram of himself while Heartman was under. He had administrative access to all the hologram terminals, so he could do it without leaving a trace. He’d have three minutes to…to do what he needed…

…To look. Just look. That’s all it was. Nothing harmful! Just a look from some broken man across the country. It would be quick and surprisingly simple to pull off…

Okay, so it was easy. That didn’t make it right! Doing something like that was…wrong. Sure, it didn’t explicitly hurt anyone, but still. There was no explicit consent on Heartman’s behalf. It was dancing around the lines of decency and morality. Toying with Heartman’s basic human dignity as well Die-hardman’s own. He’d go from an (admittedly) repressed deviant to a salivating pervert at that point. That was a line he didn’t love the idea of crossing.

Even though…

…he’d crossed so many lines over the years. What was decency to a man like him? Someone who had compromised everything— _everything_ —for an elusive, longterm idealism that may never come to be. What was morality? Die-hardman had abandoned these things long ago. What was the use of standing on ceremony anymore? Especially to himself, of all people?

Heartman never needed to find out, Die-hardman reasoned. It would be his own secret. With his executive code, not even Heartman would be able to see an incoming hologram in the logs of his terminal. Die-hardman could be a whisper. A true ghost. No form, no mass. No voice. Just an image. Just a set of eyes. 

Eyes and hungry hands that couldn’t touch. A mouth that watered at the thought of a defenseless body. A prone, judge-less body. Peaceful and unassuming. Innocent but so…enticing. That unconscious body could not pass judgement on the horribleness of Die-hardman’s own thoughts.

One thing Die-hardman could not stomach in his life was being judged poorly. Deemed ‘wanting.’ He’d excelled in every area of his career just for that purpose. He’d given up his old identity before he thought about admitting his failure to save the captain. He could not stand the thought of being seen as anything less than the untouchable director.

He needed to be untouchable, logically speaking. Someone needed to stand at the top and lead with unquestionable authority. A step removed from regular humanity. Die-hardman had accepted that role and now he needed to play it, damn it! He couldn’t go around admitting his feelings all over the place, putting himself in a situation where his humanity would be on full display. Capable of being scorned.

He couldn’t take that risk. Not now. Not when he was poised to be the president of the UCA, if that ever became a thing. Not when he was left raw and bleeding, wounded without any hope of being fixed, because his loves were dead—

He needed to be a ghost.

That was the only way he could experience that beautiful, sweet fire again. One taste and he was addicted. Die-hardman couldn’t think straight for days afterward as he turned everything over in his head. As he remembered what it felt like to look—without judgement and without needing to govern his unruly eyes—at Heartman. That unique, distinctly admirable man. 

His body was there, Die-hardman thought over and over again. Heartman’s intoxicating body was out there in the mountains. Every second of every day. And for a substantial portion of the day, it was unguarded. Practically begging to be looked at.

Who was Die-hardman to deny that body its due? That body was so very fine. John wanted to give that body the attention it deserved (why was no one talking about how beautiful Heartman was? There was nothing in the files about his physical appearance, no gossip among the porters or the Bridges staff. Was everyone else blind?). If the only way he could indulge that body—and John’s own, let’s be honest—was in masked secrecy, then…he had to do it.

He had to do it. For the love of god, he had to. 

Fortunately for him, being a ghost felt rather familiar. 

_____________________________________

Before he did it for real, Die-hardman made sure to cover all his bases. He created a schedule for all of Heartman’s cardiac arrests, down to the minute, and overlaid it with his own. It let him plot which times would be best for him to virtually visit the lab. Die-hardman blacked out a few different options and did some dry runs; meaning, he checked his cufflinks for Heartman’s signature display before using the hologram. Doubling checking his own math, making sure Heartman’s condition was really as serious as he said it was. And as precise. 

Fairly monstrous to hope that a man’s condition was serious…but Die-hardman figured he’d better leave ethics at the door for this one. Possibly forever. 

He planned a few passable lies to throw at Heartman should the original plan (three minutes, that’s all he had, technically even less) fail. Some reason for Die-hardman to be there. He’d come up with a story like he needed to check the bandwidth strength for himself, or that he had an urgent briefing to relay. He even practiced a pretend briefing about ammonites found in South Knot City just to be sure. Die-hardman lied so many times in his life, but honestly, that didn’t mean he was good at it. He wasn’t. The mask did all the work. 

Hands sweating, feeling a strange itching sensation on his tongue and on the backs of his thighs (god, he knew where that came from…why was he so far gone already?), Die-hardman prepared for his first real try. He had a drink beforehand—liquid courage. More accurately, a conscience suppressant. He needed to be just a little bit numb to pull this off. Numb in the head, warm in the gut. And lower.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t masturbated to the thought of doing this. More than once. Just thinking about how it would feel to stand over Heartman while he was knocked out. His body so honest and quiet…natural. Unburdened by the trappings of waking life. 

Of course, it occurred to Die-hardman that Heartman was not sleeping. That he would technically be dead.

For some reason, that didn’t deter John in the slightest. On the contrary, it only excited him more. 

Not breathing…Die-hardman imagined it as he bent over himself, jerking his poor, tortured cock as fast as his old hands could. Mouth slightly open, not breathing. Peaceful, free. Transcendent…beautiful…helpless against the uncaring mortal world where Die-hardman had been trapped for so long… Die-hardman was everything wrong with living and Heartman was everything good about death. Heartman’s physical body was the space in between. 

Die-hardman fetishized the hell out of it. 

He would go insane if he couldn’t see it again. His eyes were sore from the mundane world. He wanted them to burn with the beauty of Heartman’s languid form—

Knocking back his third tumbler of scotch, Die-hardman said, aloud, “Fuck it.” Before he could think anymore about it, he activated his hologram terminal and teleported himself to the mountains. 

Here was that strange, dismal-yet-quirky lab. The lights were switched to neon because Heartman was under cardiac arrest. As planned, now was one of the windows.

And there he was. There he _fucking_ was, laying on his reclining chair like it was a normal thing. John’s breath caught in his throat. This didn’t feel like reality. It was too pretty. How could something so pretty still exist in this world?

He padded softly over to Heartman’s dead body. He wanted to take his time with this, but sadly, he only had three minutes. He had to get what he needed in just three minutes. No time to waste.

He loomed over Heartman and kept his hands clenched behind his back. They were twitching, longing to touch…Heartman’s face was the same as last time. Expressionless. His chest was not moving, his AED showed a flatline. This time (unfortunately) Heartman was not splayed in an embarrassing position. He was just laying there like he was sleeping. Resting. Still warm from life. Slowly, slowly turning into a thing that was not a person. Just a thing. But that part didn’t excite John at all. He wanted to see this stage. When Heartman was still flush with blood, when he was a monument to the etherealness of death. But still, at the end of the day, a person.

A person. John’s eyes were suddenly blinking back tears. Heartman was a person. A real human being, even dead like this (because he would shortly be back). John had not been close to an actual person in…so, so long. He wanted to lay his head on Heartman’s chest and close his eyes. He wanted to brush his hand along the side of Heartman’s face and feel plush skin against his fingers. He wanted to wrap his legs around Heartman’s waist. They didn’t need to make love—John wouldn’t dare to dream of that, he knew the danger in wanting what you could never have—they could just…just…

Die-hardman was never more thankful for the mask. Even though Heartman was dead right now and couldn’t see him, the tears gathering at the corners of John’s eyes were shameful enough in their existence alone. The mask covered them. Dead, closed eyes were the only things that could see him like this. The only things that could bear the sight, probably, and the only things that he would ever want to burden with his faults. 

But the thought of a human being…a body touching his own body…it sent waves of emotion coursing through him. Pain and longing and sweet pleasure. Unlooked for, but seemingly stronger because of it. Like a thunderstorm on an otherwise sunny day. Banging and violent just to punish you for letting your guard down.

Aching for touch, John reached one trembling hand out to Heartman’s stomach. His abdomen, where John had seen skin last time. A pale tease. That humble navel. So gorgeous…John wished he could see it again. 

His greedy eyes glanced downward, where Heartman’s cock slept. Die-hardman knew that sometimes men got an erection in death, but mostly if their death had been violent. Heartman’s deaths were natural and nonviolent. His manhood was still soft. 

Even so. John could make out its general shape position. It was on the thicker side, he surmised, to bulge out from his pants naturally like that. Not long, though, judging by the outline of where it rested against the zipper. Probably he was a grower, not a shower. Like most men. 

John loved that moment when men went from soft to hard. Filling out. Rising, growing. So lewd, unable to hide. He’d seen it often enough on himself, but it had been a while since he’d seen it on another man. He wished—so bad it actually hurt—that he could see Heartman get hard. 

The image…

…Heartman looking at him with that half-smile. Giving him a thumbs up as his cock got thick, rising up against the lower part of his stomach…

John could feel how tight his pants had gotten. He shifted his legs awkwardly to accommodate. 

_“One minute to defibrillation,”_ the AED chirped.

Damn! Out of time. 

Slightly panicked and thrilled with the rush of having come this far, John lost himself. He got down on his knees. He was eye-level with the bulge in Heartman’s pants now. Exactly where he wanted to be. 

He brought his hand down and let it hover over the outline of Heartman’s package. He couldn’t feel it (even if he dropped his hand all the way down, it would pass right through Heartman’s mass), but he could imagine the weight. The heat. Burning his hand with its natural shamelessness. 

John groaned without realizing. That fire in him was so hot now—cradling Heartman’s modest gifts in the virtual palm of his hand, fuzzy where the hologram contrasted with reality. His needs were boiling, bubbling up to the surface and he couldn’t stop them…

He wanted to bury his face against the fabric of Heartman’s pants. Right at the crotch. Where his hand was. He wondered what it would smell like…

Shit, he was about to cum. 

_“Ten seconds to defibrill—”_

Terrified, aroused, and out of his mind, Die-hardman cut the hologram. All at once he was kneeling on the floor of his office. Alone. Cold. Leaking through the thin fabric of his dress slacks. 

Without giving it a second thought, John unbuckled his pants and shoved his hand inside. He got two, maybe three strokes in before he was cumming all over the floor. Drool smeared against the back of his mask, making sounds a man twenty years younger than him ought to be making. So caught up in his orgasm he didn’t think about how disastrous it would be to expose himself at work. He wasn’t thinking about anything except Heartman’s glorious, unassuming body. 

He was ruined.

He might have blacked out for a few seconds, but when he opened his eyes again he was slumped face-first on the ground. Hunched over a puddle of his own cum, which had stained the carpet. Sunken into the fabric not six inches away from the UCA seal. 

Thank god no one saw him. It was a crazy, debauched mess.

But before Die-hardman had even put his dick away, he was looking at his schedule. Clocking the next window of opportunity when he could spare the time to visit Heartman’s lab again. 

Only a little more than a week. Good. 

Suffice to say, he got addicted fast. Before he knew it, he was indulging his habit once a week. Then twice a week. 

Each time he went, John found something new to appreciate. The way Heartman’s hair fell against his ears. The shape of his lips. The outline of his pectoral muscles against his shirt. There was enough definition in those muscles to make out underneath the material. That was impressive. Heartman was a fit man. Die-hardman was not so fit anymore. Age had worn him down into a shape he hardly recognized. But that was all the more reason to appreciate what Heartman had going on. 

He got bolder as time went on. He let his incorporeal hands pass through Heartman’s body. His face, his chest, his manhood. There was a particular thrill in that. It felt like sex in a way. Sharing the same space, even if it was only virtual space. It looked like sex sometimes, letting his fingers pass into Heartman’s mouth. 

It was wrong. Indelibly, horribly wrong. 

…It was so good. _So_ good. Miserably. Amazingly. _Good_. 

Die-hardman got to a point where he couldn’t live without doing it. He didn’t know what the hell he would do if he couldn’t indulge this awful habit! His life was coming apart at the seams without Bridget (at least in his own mind) and the world was probably ending. The only brief respite John had from the madness was the three minutes he allotted to spend time with Heartman (more specifically, Heartman’s flatlined corpse). It was the only thing keeping him sane! 

He wished he could stop. But at the same time, he never ever wanted to stop. He couldn’t masturbate without thinking of Heartman. He couldn’t get off without imagining that man’s angelic figure sprawled out for him like an offering! 

There was a decent chance he’d already lost his mind. Sure, maybe. John didn’t have any evidence against it. But honestly…

It didn’t matter. 

There was no way out now.

____________________________________________

Heartman rubbed a finger against his chin. His face was blank, but his mind was working at record speed. Putting the pieces together. Imagining…thinking.

He flipped through the video records on his monitor with a swipe of his finger. 

Apparently this had been going on for about two months. 

To summarize, Heartman had noticed a glitch in the data output from his prepper terminal. When he was going over the logs of all the deliveries he’d sent and received, there was a strange error message appearing in the corner of the screen. A series of random characters flashing and disappearing. Heartman thought nothing of it at first, but then it started appearing with increasing frequency. Once a week, then almost once a day. There didn’t seem to be any obvious lingering side effects of the glitch, but still. Heartman decided to dig deeper. 

He ran a scan for malware. No viruses or anything like that. There was something interesting in the coding, though. The transcript of his transactional records showed the same error message appearing numerous times. Further breakdown of the data revealed that it was actually his hologram terminal with the error. The problem was something with the holographic tech, but the readout was appearing on the prepper terminal because that was the only place with an output mechanism. And they shared a system.

It was fascinating, really. How machines had evolved to ‘find a way,’ in one manner of phrasing. Nature was bilingual; its language applied to machines as well. 

Anyway, Heartman sent a copy of the message to Mama Lockne. He thought they might be able to tell him what it meant. Sure enough, they replied immediately that they’d seen the message before in Bridges tech. It appeared when someone used administrative access and forgot to clear their RAM afterwards. A common fault, one that they’d sent many emails about in the early days of Bridges. 

Administrative access. Now that was interesting. 

It was safe to assume—and quickly confirmed by Mama Lockne—that there were not many people with administrative access within Bridges I. It was also confirmed that Heartman’s terminal was the only one showing this message. 

So that left one obvious conclusion: Someone was overriding the history of his hologram terminal. His specifically. 

Now, the remaining question: Why.

It was times like these that Heartman gave himself credit for installing that contemporaneous video logging system on his computer. His lab was constantly recorded to a private video feed that only he had access to. It came in handy when he forgot what he had been doing right before an NDE and couldn’t for the life of him remember once he got back. He watched videos of himself from three minutes earlier so as to pick up the threads. Quite useful.

It was also useful, it would seem, in discovering that the Director had been paying him many unlogged visits over the past few weeks. Emphasis on ‘many.’ Heartman was honestly surprised to see how often it was—but, on the positive side, it completed the narrative. The visits matched the times Heartman had seen the error message. So, problem solved.

Or…explained.

No, this matter was nowhere close to being solved.

Heartman noted a pattern to Die-hardman’s visits. The man seemed to wait until Heartman went into cardiac arrest, appeared holographically using his administrative access, and then…stared at him. At Heartman’s Ka-less Ha. His body. 

Not just staring, by the looks of it. 

Heartman watched the video of the Director’s most recent visit. He appeared mere seconds after Heartman went into cardiac arrest—as if he had been waiting for it, as if it had been timed—and stood over his body. Familiar with him, in a…certain way. Die-hardman dropped right to his knees and dragged his face from the top of Heartman’s shoulder to the meat of his thighs. Over and over. He didn’t touch—because he couldn’t he was only a hologram—but his face was remarkably close. As close as it was possible to get without passing through him.

And then Die-hardman did pass through him. He wrapped his arms around Heartman’s legs and buried his head in Heartman’s nether regions. Straight through. Until all that was left of the Director’s hologram was a neck and a torso. The rest of him was phased somewhere in Heartman’s Ha. Specifically, his penis, testicles, and thighs. 

…Interesting. 

Heartman scrolled through the videos, not really seeing them anymore. His mind was elsewhere. 

He never would have thought the Director…

…But then again…

The Director was a man after all. A man had needs. Somehow, for some reason, the Director had decided his needs involved Heartman’s lifeless body. Was it just the lifeless part he found enticing, or was it something more? Was he attracted to Heartman when he was alive as well? That was a question with no answer at the moment. 

Frankly, Heartman couldn’t say he minded. One way or the other, alive or dead, Die-hardman wanted him. There was no confusion on that front. The interesting part of this information was not that Die-hardman had needs or that he’d chosen to sate them in this unorthodox way. No, the interesting part was that he’d chosen Heartman. 

After watching his family pass into the afterlife without him, Heartman had consigned himself to living without a soul. He considered himself mostly dead. He had a spiritual purpose, but that purpose did not lie in the world of the living. By that logic, he was more dead than alive. His Ha was a shell at this point. A husk. He performed his daily tasks by muscle memory. His real life occurred on the Beach.

He’d accepted all that. He didn’t mind living this way, really. Not when he told himself it was only temporary. He’d find his family eventually. And if not, well. Life didn’t last forever. Through either path, he’d meet them soon enough. 

Yet, somehow, a person had found a use for his soulless husk of a body. They found it appealing, they _wanted_ it. They wanted it in the most alive way possible, they wanted to have sex with it. 

It boggled Heartman’s mind for a moment. Truly. He hadn’t thought about sex since his first NDE. Now that he was thinking about it—and he was _certainly_ thinking about it, imagining his body at the hands of the Director, defenseless and poignant—he felt strange. He felt almost…connected to the world of the living again. In a fundamental way he had lost. 

He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times. Marveling at the blood flowing through them. He felt warm. Corporeal. Alive. 

He bounced his eyebrows. Wow. Feeling alive like this was so nostalgic! 

He…liked it. 

Not that he was giving up his soul’s purpose, of course. That was a given. He couldn’t even if he wanted to because every twenty-one minutes he was going to the Beach regardless of how he felt about it. And on the Beach he would continue the search for his family. He _had_ to.

But…those twenty-one minutes of living in between. Well, Heartman didn’t see a reason why those had to be miserable minutes. Why they couldn’t be enjoyed for their own sake on occasion. Life was a unique experience; it was nothing like the Beach. Everyone was destined to die—perhaps sooner rather than later, in fact, Heartman especially. So, like most experiences, life was meant to be savored. You had to really taste a glass of wine to identify its notes. To reach for it when you were thirsty. Life was the same. You had to fully experience it in order to remember it when you were gone. 

Heartman looked at the video where Die-hardman’s face was buried in his groin. He glanced from the video to his own crotch several times. Imagining Die-hardman’s face there. Imagining that he’d almost been touched by this man many times. Almost, but not quite. 

Oh, he remembered now. It felt _lovely_ to be touched, didn’t it?

Yes, it did.

The Director…he looked like he really needed this. If they were to do this for real, Heartman was sure Die-hardman would be a needy lover. Ah, needy lovers were a treasure. A rare bloom, especially these days! Wonderful in bed; expressive, thoughtful. Throbbing with vivacity. Alive in every sense of the word. Truly meant to be savored. Yes, a needy person might have several uses for Heartman’s Ka-less body. Several indeed. They might even find a use for him with his faculties intact.

Heartman immediately began to make the arrangements. His mind worked quickly with the right encouragement. He was already ten steps ahead of himself. 

The AED was counting down. Always. Time was running out, for all of them! 

Better not let any of it go to waste.

_______________________________________

It all happened so suddenly. 

Die-hardman was in his office, perusing some documents that had been delivered to him that morning, when out of nowhere (literally) Fragile appeared. Umbrella in hand. Staring at him with her usual surly, quietly bored expression. 

“Are you ready to go?” she asked. 

Die-hardman almost glanced behind him, certain she couldn’t be talking to him. Like in a comic book. But no, obviously, they were the only people in the room. Focus. 

He blinked at her. Keeping his cool. “Where are we going?” he replied smoothly.

No sooner was the question out of his mouth than Heartman’s voice rang through his cufflink. “Sorry, let me explain,” he said rapidly. “I require your presence in my lab this afternoon for some personal research. My apologies for not getting in contact with you earlier, but…I believe time is of the essence. So I prioritized my objectives and asked Fragile to transport you post-haste. She was kind enough to agree.”

Fragile nodded once. Smirking slightly. Like a smug cat. 

Die-hardman couldn’t keep up! Heartman needed him in his lab? For some personal research? What the hell did that mean? Not only that, but Fragile was teleporting him—Die-hardman had never been teleported! He wasn’t sure he was up for it…at his age…with all his metaphorical (and quasi-literal) baggage….

Also…Die-hardman glanced at his watch. It was almost time for Heartman’s regularly scheduled NDE. He knew the timing of it by heart now, shamefully enough. What urgent business could Heartman conduct when he was under cardiac arrest? 

(Actually, Die-hardman could imagine a few things…a few ‘matters’ that might indeed require his attention…his personal scrutiny…)

…But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t even ask about the impending cardiac arrest without giving too much away about his activities for the past two months. It would look too suspicious. He knew everyone on the team already suspected him of some grave misdeeds…no reason to give them anymore fuel…

He was trapped.

“What urgent research is this, Heartman? Did you send me an email about it?” Not that he wanted to admit he basically…skimmed all of Heartman’s emails, but…well. Die-hardman was already rising to his feet.

“No, Director, sorry. No emails. I’ll explain everything when you get here.” Heartman was speaking quickly. Perhaps this was an emergency. “Now, if you please, take Fragile’s hands and begin the transport. Fragile is a busy woman. I’m sure she has other places to be.” 

“…Alright.” 

Die-hardman skeptically looked at Fragile. She was staring at him in a penetrative yet oddly passive way. She sized him up several times…perhaps too intimately for Die-hardman’s comfort. Her lips quirked up on one side. Her version of a laugh?

…What the hell was that about?

Shoving his reservations aside, Die-hardman rationalized his actions with the notion that this served a greater good. Heartman’s research was of paramount importance. If he deemed something worthy of the Director’s attention then it probably was. He’d never been overreactive in the past. So there was good reason to trust Heartman and support him. For the cause. 

And also…well, John was not about to pass up an opportunity to see Heartman’s lifeless body in person. To feel the heat of that room and the weighty atmosphere of Heartman’s eerie set up. To stand close to him in person, to have an actual reason for it…to have sensations to put to all the memories…

Behind the mask, John was trembling in excitement. 

Ignoring Fragile’s strange looks, Die-hardman took her hands. He flinched when she brought their foreheads together. Not used to having any kind of physical contact with another person. Luckily, they were not touching directly. She was wearing gloves and he was wearing a mask. Otherwise, John might have visibly shivered. As it was, this was the most he’d touched another person in…he couldn’t remember. 

“Close your eyes,” Fragile instructed. “Picture your destination.” 

John did as he was told. He’d seen the inside of Heartman’s lab so many times. He knew it quite well. He imagined it viscerally. Brewing with anticipation. 

“There!” 

With a loud pop, a rush of cold air, and a passing smell of tar and sea water, Die-hardman stumbled. Suddenly Fragile was gone and he was in a dark place. Warm. The crackle of the monitor and the distant wind told him immediately where he was. 

The lab. Complete with the requisite whale skeleton and everything. 

He was here. Just like that! 

John’s head was spinning. He felt a little dizzy, weak in the knees. For a second he thought he might fall to the floor and toss up his breakfast, but then—

“First time jumping?"

Heartman was behind him. At Die-hardman’s six o’clock about three yards away. Good. Gave him some time to get himself in order before he faced him. Die-hardman straightened his spine and fixed his suit. He wanted to appear at least somewhat put together in front of this man, who occupied almost all of his private thoughts. Besides, he had a role to play here. He made sure the mask was still firmly affixed to his face before he turned around. 

“Yes,” he answered. “But I’m fine. Nothing out of the—”

It was a good thing he’d fixed himself beforehand. Because when he turned around to face Heartman he completely fell apart. Every thought, every muscle, every iota of his being shut down. Into nothing. Stunned silence. Overwhelmed and entirely broken.

Heartman was standing in front of the window with a calm expression on his face. His usual. He might have been standing at his computer or in front of his library performing any menial task….

Except right now he was completely naked. Not a stitch of clothing on him except for his AED. Framed by a silhouette of snow and the shadows cast on his body by the room’s lighting. 

The rest of John’s strength left him in one fell swoop. He swayed in place, leaning on the nearby record player for support. His heart was in his feet and his brain was a distant memory. His cock, however, had been brought up like a schoolboy called to attention. 

He was dreaming. This was a dream. Perhaps he’d had a stroke. Or maybe he was dead. This couldn’t be real! It couldn’t be…couldn’t be…

Heartman smiled, taking in Die-hardman’s reaction. “Sorry for the ruse,” he said throwing his hands up in surrender. “To be clear, there was no urgent research that requires your attention. Or at least, not as such. Not as I led you to believe.” 

_“Four minutes to cardiac arrest.”_

Heartman walked over to his chair, running his hand over the leather. John twitched as if he had been physically touched. His mind was running on reserve power and apparently the only power available was desperately horny. He couldn’t think of anything except the breathtaking body in front of him. He could hardly process Heartman’s words. He knew only the persistent scream in the back of his head, demanding that he touch this body. Kneel for him. Kiss him. Worship his curves. The soft line of his cock, lilting to the left (as John had expected). The downy trail of hair leading to his manhood in a bushy, tangled mess…so natural…his long, slim legs…

Die-hardman swallowed before drool ran down his chin.

“Alas, I’m out of time. So I’ll be blunt.” Heartman’s hands dangled loosely around his thighs. John’s whole body broke out into goosebumps as he fixated on those hands. Those hands, those hands. John’s nipples were hard against his dress shirt, as if they had been stroked by those hands. 

God…he was so ruined. Helpless. Entirely at Heartman’s mercy. 

“I know you’ve been paying me some, ah, visits recently, Director. I keep video logs of everything that goes on in the lab. I’ve seen everything. The secret holograms while I’m under cardiac arrests. Everything.” Heartman looked Die-hardman up and down. His mind seemed to be calculating something. 

If John had any sense left he would have been embarrassed. Humiliated, ashamed. He might have sputtered some excuse (bandwidth strength, wasn’t it?). But really, he had no sense left at all. The only thing he managed to utter was a stupid “Nuuhh…” sound. His tongue was not working. Or at least, not for that. It had already decided its purpose for the afternoon. It wanted to be put to work on the body in front of him. Nothing else. 

“No need to explain. I understand entirely.” Heartman held up a hand. “Or at least, I think I do. If I’m correct in my assumption of what you want when you bury your face in my body. Right here.” His hand dipped between his legs, covering his manhood for an exaggerated moment. Indicating exactly where John’s attention was and always had been during his ‘visits.’ 

Jesus. This was better than porn. Heartman speaking like that and touching himself…John might not survive much more of this! He was already dripping pre-cum in his pants and his heart rate had skyrocketed off the charts. 

_Please…_

He wanted to beg. He wanted to beg for everything. Or anything. A chance to stand here a moment longer—with Heartman’s consent this time. A chance to look, maybe to touch just a little…okay, no, he wouldn’t be too greedy! He could be fine merely watching. Standing in the corner and quietly getting himself to completion like some kind of deranged pervert. That was fine with John right now! He would let Heartman call all the shots. As far as he was willing to go and not a step further. 

This was entirely Heartman’s call and he wanted to beg for the privilege of standing in the man’s space with him for a few more minutes. He could get off just by kneeling at Heartman’s feet and letting his eyes wander. If Heartman uttered a few choice words to him… Words that had only ever been spoken by his two loves…

_Please, for the love of God…_

“And, judging by the remarkable tent in your trousers, I’m willing to say my assumptions were correct.” Heartman sat on the chair with a look of triumph on his face. He stared at John’s package like he’d beaten it at a game of chess or something. “By the way. Very nice, Director. That’s a formidable endowment you’ve got there. Very nice indeed.” 

Oh, no. No no no….

_No, please, you don’t know what that does to me…!_

Grunting in his throat like an animal, John gave up. He couldn’t fight it anymore. Not like this, after so long wanting. He fell to his knees and got on all fours. Where he belonged, where he’d been dying to be since the beginning! 

He crawled over to Heartman on his hands and knees. Scraping and scrambling. As fast as he could. When he reached the chair, he sat back on his haunches and waited. Sitting at the Heartman’s feet like some oversized pet. 

“I…please, I…” He reached out to touch Heartman’s glorious body, but pulled his hands back at the last second. He hadn’t been given permission yet. 

_“Two minutes to cardiac arrest.”_

Instead, John clasped his hands together in a pleading gesture. He was in it now. All the way at the bottom of his pride and self-respect. There was only this. Only Heartman and his will. Did the man know the power he had in that moment? He could break the Director with a single word. Make him cum or cast him into eternal agony. 

“Please…forgive me, I…can’t…” John’s fingernails dug into the skin on the backs of his hands. He wagged his clasped fists in front of his face like a beggar. “…I couldn’t…”

Like a god, Heartman extended a hand down to him. Covering John’s fists with his soft palm. “It’s alright. You needn’t explain. I know how it is, how hard it can be in our times to ask for things like this. No need to beg. We’re both quite alright. There’s nothing to forgive.” 

Relief and tension exploded inside John’s lungs. He exhaled in a harsh bellow and buried his face against Heartman’s shins. Clutching the man’s legs like a child clinging to its mother. Words could not express how he felt being gifted Heartman’s forgiveness. For all the terrible things he’d done and imagined doing these past few months. 

How could Heartman forgive him? How could he wipe it all away with one sweep of his hand? How could he not be disgusted by Die-hardman’s natural repugnance? Didn’t he see the kind of man John had become over the years? Especially now…on his knees in an expensive suit, crying and begging in Heartman’s lab. Rock hard. Pathetic.

Was Heartman really…alright with all this? 

_“One minute to cardiac arrest.”_

John glanced up at Heartman, searching his face for answers. But Heartman just seemed peaceful. A man going to his death, you might say, with no regrets. Wordlessly, Heartman fit his fingers along the seam between Die-hardman’s mask and face. He tugged it off him anticlimactically. There was no time for theatrics. Just like that, he exposed John’s face to the world. His tearful, crumpled, ruined, begging face. 

The world froze. John was poised like a flower about to be plucked from its bed. Delicate and defenseless. This was the final test. The last barrier between them. If Heartman accepted him now, then that meant—

Heartman’s eyes widened. He ran a hand down the side of John’s face. “My goodness…you have such a lovely face, Director. I thought…but look at you…” Pleased, marveling, Heartman’s fingers danced along John’s skin. His eyebrows, his jaw, his cheeks. His lips. Touching all the skin that had been hidden from the world for years upon years. 

John whimpered and buried his face in Heartman’s palm. He was a hair’s breadth away from cumming. A passing glance to his cock would push him over the edge. His whole body was sensitized and desperate. In fact, if Heartman kept stroking his face like this there was a decent chance he wouldn’t be able to stop it—

_“Ten…nine…eight…”_

In a rush, Heartman pulled away. He flung himself back on the chair, fluid with practice. “You have three minutes,” he said to John. Turning over the chiral hourglass on the bedside table with almost inhuman speed. “Use them wisely.”

_“Two…one…”_

Heartman went slack. Unnaturally so. A monotone hum from the AED indicated that he was flatlining. The lights turned fluorescent. Just like that, Heartman was dead. 

At least for the next three minutes. John had been instructed by the man himself to ‘use them wisely.’ 

He could do that. Oh yes. John would follow that order. To the ends of the earth and back. 

The only challenge now would be restraining himself enough to do it carefully. Respectfully. He would not descend upon Heartman’s body like a starving man who had just been given a feast. No, he would do this properly. He would…

His hands moved on their own. They latched onto Heartman’s chest and massaged the muscles there, around the AED. The contrast of pale flesh and the yellow strap of the AED didn’t strike John as odd. He saw the machine as part of Heartman. The thing keeping him tethered to the world of the living. He liked the machine. Appreciated its efforts. 

Heartman’s muscles were already going slightly stiff from lack of blood flow. Not rigid, more like solid. Die-hardman knew this sensation from the battlefield, those first few minutes after death as the body slowly forgot its humanity. This was only the very beginning. The most obvious sign that Heartman was dead was the fact that his chest was not moving rhythmically with breath. He was just laying there. 

A full course meal. Prime for the taking. 

John moaned and pressed his face into Heartman’s chest. A mass of flesh—a smell! These sensations! Tears leaked from his eyes and he rutted his hips against the side of the couch. He was powerless against the needs inside of him. They had spilled over, taken control. He was humping and molesting Heartman’s dead, naked body like a degenerate.

But that was fine. Because he’d gotten permission from the man himself.

The permission more than anything turned him on. To know that Heartman trusted him enough to allow this. That he was fine with Die-hardman touching him anywhere…anywhere? 

John looked down to Heartman’s resting manhood. Nestled in a bed of pubic hair. Flaccid, relaxed. Growing cold. 

John licked his lips. Cold? Well, he couldn’t allow that, could he? Not after Heartman had entrusted his body into John’s care! Nope, that cock would not grow cold on John’s watch. Not now, not ever.

Getting comfortable on his knees again (an admittedly familiar position for John at this point in his life), John got eye level with Heartman’s cock. He felt like an old friend to this cock, even though it was true that they’d never technically met. Even so, John had a tremendous amount of affection for it. He ran his fingers over the length, caressing it. He brushed the tip of his nose along the soft flesh of that member, inhaling as deep as he could. It smelled exactly as he imagined, what he knew a man’s penis to smell like. 

It was fucking perfect. Not too thick, but certainly not small. Modest but confident. Just like Hearman. This dick was a smaller version of his persona and John found that adorable. He kissed the crown of Heartman’s cock tenderly. Savoring the feel of it on his lips. 

God, yes. 

He played with Heartman’s cock for a bit. Toyed with it. Licked the tip. Buried his nose in the pubic hair. Wrapped his mouth around the base just to see if it would fit. He was overjoyed to find that this cock fit his mouth to a T. Chemistry like this was hard to find! When he finally took the whole thing in his mouth, he cried literal tears of joy. 

That cock was cold. But no matter. John was warming it now. So Heartman would have something nice to awaken to. 

Having a flaccid dick in his mouth was a relatively new sensation. It was pliable and squishy. Not unlike a marshmallow. But it tasted like flesh, salt, and musk. That unique, exquisite taste. No mistaking it. John worked his mouth over that soft cock for all he was worth. He was careful and gentle with it. Even though it was true Heartman was currently dead and could feel nothing, that didn’t matter. John would treat that cock with the respect it deserved. Mind his manners. 

He could have stayed there for hours. Or years. Or forever. His lips stretched around Heartman’s manhood. Keeping it warm, swirling his tongue along the tip like it was a sweet treat. Hard as hell in his own pants, but paying it no mind. His own pleasure could wait! This was about caring for Heartman’s body. About paying respects. 

_“Ten seconds to defibrillation.”_

Where had the time gone! John wanted so badly to keep his mouth around that cock, it pained him dearly to let it go, but also…Heartman was about to be defibrillated. As much as John wanted to worship at the shrine of that cock, he didn’t want to incur a tangental shock either. 

_“Five…four…three…”_

Planting a goodbye kiss on Heartman’s length, John rose to his feet. Standing clear. He watched with rapt attention as Heartman received three shocks. One. Two. Three—

Gasping, Heartman sat upright. Color instantly returning to his flesh—all over his body. Tears streamed down his face. This time, John was there to wipe them. He took out his handkerchief and passed it over Heartman’s cheeks. Hoping that the gentle touches would ease Heartman back into the world of the living. Not abruptly and painfully, like the defibrillator did. 

After a moment or two, Heartman blinked. He wasn’t wearing his cufflinks, so he didn’t record his search. 

“Did you find them?” John asked. Somewhat pointlessly, since he knew the answer already.

Heartman smiled around his tears. He pushed John’s handkerchief away and pulled the man in for a kiss. “I’m afraid not,” he said, lips brushing against John’s. “But it appears my Ha found something else while I was away. Something marvelous.” 

John’s eyes rolled around their sockets as he was kissed. His lips could barely remember how this felt. It was so wonderful! So intimate and kind. Heartman was an attentive kisser. Soft but precise. Studious, as he learned how to manipulate John’s mouth to his own movements. Heavenly. John wanted to devote his mouth to the service of Heartman for the rest of his life. 

_Please, please, let me serve you…_

Losing himself again to the desire to serve, John fell to his knees. He wasted no time wrapping his mouth around Heartman’s cock. Picking up right where he left off.

“Oh!” Heartman cried, wrapping a hand around John’s head. “You were…busy, weren’t you? Doing this?"

John nodded with enthusiasm. He sucked hard and trilled in happiness when Heartman’s whole body shook. It appeared he hadn’t gotten head in a while. Was John the first one since Heartman’s wife? Shit, why was that so hot? 

John gave his all to that cock. He sucked for all he was worth. Remembering everything the captain taught him. He moaned in satisfaction as Heartman grew hard. He pulled back long enough to get an eyeful of Heartman’s fully erect dick. Yes, he was certainly a grower. He grew to a nice size. Blushing red like a virgin. John watched in rapture, teasing Heartman with kittenish licks on the crown. Just to see him twitch.

“Ah-ah! That’s…oh, I’d forgotten…that’s…!” Heartman threw his head back and moaned. Not bothering to disguise his pleasure. Not embarrassed. He seemed to be living for the moment. Letting John take him to new heights.

John pleasured him like that for a while. Massaging Heartman’s balls, taking the tip all the way to the back of his throat. Fucking his mouth on that cock. Sloppy and wet. Maximizing the sensation for Heartman. He took his time. Let them both enjoy it.

Still, it wasn’t long before Heartman’s breathing became uneven. His hips stuttered upward into John’s mouth. He started biting his lip, clearly trying to hold back his impending orgasm. 

Until he couldn’t anymore.

“Oh-oh-! D-director, I’m cumming—! I’m about to—!”

John took him as far in as he could. Ready to swallow whatever Heartman would give him. Sure enough, being buried in such a tight, hot throat made Heartman cum. He bent backwards in an arch as he came, emptying himself in buckets down John’s throat. There was quite a lot of it. Clearly he’d been pent up.

John felt absolutely privileged to be the one to break Heartman’s dry spell. 

“M-my apologies…” Heartman stuttered, adjusting his glasses (which had gone crooked somewhere in the middle of that). “I should have warned you that it…has been quite a while since the last time I…experienced anything like this.” 

John kissed Heartman’s thighs. He couldn’t believe the man was apologizing! After he’d just given John the gift of a lifetime! Something he’d thought was lost to him forever, in more ways than one! 

He looked up, making eye contact with Heartman. “It’s an honor,” he said. Resolute and sincere. 

Heartman blushed a nice shade of pink. He pushed his glasses up again, then got down on the floor alongside John. “May I…?” he asked, running his fingers along John’s belt. 

Taken aback—he hadn’t expected Heartman to want to do this for him—John pulled away. “That’s alright, you don’t have to—”

“No, please.” Heartman grabbed John by his belt buckle. “Allow me.” His eyes left no room for argument.

Helpless, pinned under that gaze, John’s hands fell to his sides. He let Heartman do whatever he wanted with him. 

It was for the best. Because he couldn’t have lifted a hand to defend himself once Heartman started touching him for real. 

The moment Heartman’s hand cupped John’s hardness over his pants, John thought he would climax. He gasped and shivered, jerking his hips out of the way before he made a complete fool of himself. (Not that he had any credibility left to his name at this point, but still. He wasn’t a kid anymore…cumming in his pants was a bridge too far…)

“Sensitive, I see,” Heartman commented. He undid John’s buckle and zipper, sparing him some dignity. 

John wanted to say, ‘you have no idea.’ If only Heartman knew the things he could get him to do with the right words! He wouldn’t even have to do much, he just—

Heartman’s hand in John’s pants felt like dying. It was light and freedom and deliverance. It was the world, this one and the next. It took his breath away but left him choking out sobs like an infant. No one had touched him there—his own treacherous hard-on—in…uncountable years. Bridget was not into that. Most of the time she preferred to take her pleasure from John’s mouth and be done with it. So that was that. And John had been faithful to Bridget for decades. 

“There you are,” Heartman drawled. Stroking John slowly. Evenly. 

John couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear or think. He could only _feel—_ he was collapsing. Splitting open. Disintegrating. Heartman was destroying him by touching his bare cock like this. John hadn’t known his cock was worthy of anyone’s attention. He’d always seen it as an afterthought. He came so easily, anyway. But with Heartman’s hand there…he was liable to go completely insane. For good. He’d get addicted to this man’s supple hands; his voice, deeper now as he whispered things into John’s ear; his body. As John pressed his forehead against Heartman’s neck. 

“My, my…” Heartman wondered aloud. Rubbing his hand in the copious amount of slick pre-cum, making a humiliatingly wet sound. “I believe you’ve gone even longer than I have. That’s…incredible.” 

“Ah-!” John tightened. Even that small bit of praise would get him there! He was seconds away from a shattering orgasm, he could taste it! He was right on the edge, about to fall, surrendering his mind to the nothingness that awaited—

“Thank you for this, Director.” Heartman kissed the side of his face. “You’ve done so well. Thank you.” 

With a wracking cry, John came into Heartman’s hand. He didn’t know how long he was cumming—though it felt like eons—and he couldn’t be sure how much there was. All he knew was that he had soaked himself. Utterly. He was destroyed. Scattered into pieces. He was crying. Bawling into Heartman’s neck with the force of that release. Something he couldn’t ever have prepared for. It was too much. Way, way too much. 

He needed…he needed…

Heartman wrapped his arms around John’s back. Locking him in an embrace. “Alright. I see. It’s alright now. Shh, shh. I know.” 

Heartman held him and rubbed circles into his back. Rocked him like a child. John didn’t know where any of this was coming from—no, that was a lie. He knew well enough. These were the emotions he’d kept buried for an eternity. Ever since he’d killed the captain and became Die-hardman. These were the aftershocks of that moment. Still, that moment. That fucking…moment. Forever that moment. Something he’d never allowed himself to fully experience. 

Until now. 

He laid in Heartman’s arms and cried. Feeling like he had finally fallen. He’d been suspending himself in midair for a while and now gravity kicked in. 

But Heartman was there to catch him. 

Thank God.

They laid there for an indeterminate amount of time. Then, out of nowhere: _“Five minutes to cardiac arrest.”_

John’s tears had stopped. He was resting in Heartman’s arms while the man stroked his head. He felt a moment of peace for the first time in his sorry ass life, and now it had to end?! Unthinkable! 

John sat up and clasped Heartman’s hands. “Don’t go,” he begged. “Please! Don’t!” 

At that, Heartman’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting a reaction like that. “It’s fine…” he said, wavering. Not certain exactly what Die-hardman needed to hear. “…I’ll be back shortly. And my Ha isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be alright, I promise…”

John shook his head. He couldn’t fathom the thought of losing Heartman. Not again, God, no! Even if it was only for a few minutes! The thought of that was terrifying considering the possibility that Heartman might decide to stay on the Beach. To leave him. Like Bridget, like the captain. John couldn’t bear to be left again. He didn’t want to lose anyone else to death—

He wrapped his arms around Heartman. As if his embrace could keep him grounded in the world of the living. 

_“Two minutes to cardiac arrest.”_

That piece of shit timer! Okay, John was starting to see why Heartman turned it off sometimes. It really was annoying! 

Pulling away from him, Heartman rose to his feet. He took John by the hand and made him stand as well. “I’m going now. But I’ll be back. Just three minutes. Alright?” He stroked the side of John’s face and kissed him again. 

There was no way around it. 

Steeling himself, calling upon reserves of strength he hadn’t even known he possessed, John held Heartman’s chin in his hand. “If you find them, you go to them. I won’t deny you that.” 

He couldn’t. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. Heartman lived for his family. You couldn’t take away a man’s purpose. Heartman wouldn’t agree to it anyway. John had to concede that much.

“But if you don’t…you come right back here. Understood? Right. Back. Here.” He kissed Heartman as hard as he could. On the mouth. Branding himself into the man’s lips so he wouldn’t forget about him. “Don’t go getting lost on that Beach. You hear me?” 

Heartman nodded. “Right. Of course. I won’t.” 

_“One minute to cardiac arrest.”_

John hugged him one more time. “So go then, if you have to. But promise me you’ll be back, unless….” He sighed. “Just promise me.” 

Suddenly deathly serious, Heartman grabbed John by the shoulders. “I’ll be back.”

“Swear it.” 

Heartman’s eyes were locked on his own. “I swear it. I will not get lost. I will find a way to get back to you. I promise.” 

John nodded. He guided Heartman to lay back on his chair. Making sure the man was comfortable. “Alright then.” 

As the AED counted down, Heartman gave him a thumbs up. Likes chirped in the background. Deadpanning. John just stared at him. 

“Three minutes,” Heartman said. Smiling despite the seconds counting to zero. “Won’t be l—”

But he didn’t finish his thought. He died before he got the chance. 

“Three minutes,” John repeated. “You promised.” 

So. How to fill the time? John busied himself cleaning the both of them as much as he could. He got out of his suit, stripping down to his boxers and undershirt. He threw a towel over Heartman’s naked body. Not for any particular reason, really. But he didn’t want Heartman to catch cold when he woke up.

He checked his watch. 

Three minutes. That’s what Heartman said. It was only a minute left. Just one minute. He could wait. And then Heartman would be back. 

Was this how it would be between them? John moved Heartman’s legs and made room for himself on the chair. Always counting down the minutes. Perpetually waiting. Always a matter of time until the next part of the cycle. Death and revival. On and on…

John stroked the hair out of Heartman’s eyes. Well. Three minutes was three minutes. It wasn’t an eternity. It was just a matter of time. Just a matter of time.

_“Ten seconds to defibrillation.”_

He’ll be back, John told himself. He promised. 

He promised…

After three jolts and a harsh gasp, John broke into a smile. He put his arm on Heartman’s shoulder. Wiping away tears and pressing a kiss to still-stiff lips.

“Welcome back.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Now for the question on everyone's mind: How did Heartman convince Fragile to teleport Die-hardman? Why, cryptobiotes, of course! He's got that premium shit. And the keychain that makes it easier to catch them. That goes a long way with Fragile. Plus, Fragile's not THAT busy that she can't help out some disaster bisexuals. She's good with it.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm in deep, as you can see. Would love to write more for these two. Let's make this ship a thing!


End file.
